PRP - The first draft of the question

I started off last term thinking I'd explore the accessibility route for my research. It would inevitably have proven wise knowledge to hold when wanting to sell myself as a web designer in the future. But this was mooted as being a "done" topic by Danny. Shaun then suggested trying to co-align the client and the PRP - and I think it could work out.

The first draft of my new question is now:

What standards are necessary to achieve a better browsing experience on the mobile web?

At this stage, I believe this will involve looking at:

The hardware

· the phone itself, whether it be a touch screen or requiring keyed inputs, also the advanced components it has such as accelerometers or a GPS chipset

· the processing power of the handset – determining how smoothly and quickly the page can scroll, how quick the data can be loaded from the server

· the data connection used (GPRS, EDGE, 3G, WIFI) - affecting the speed of which the data can be downloaded to the device

· the internet browser utilised (Safari, Opera, Webkit in Android) - this playing a role in how it handles style sheets and renders text and images

· the screen resolution – typically the larger the better, but with mobile devices screen space is of a limited nature so finding adequate resolutions so that text is legible, whilst video appears qualitative will be important

Meanwhile, real importance also lies in the on screen design:

· through CSS (the techniques and mark-up) – what does and doesn’t function on the various mobile browsers

· the layout and presentation on screen - what text size is appropriate for different areas on the page, how large must a button appear, should links be underlined

· the usability in terms of knowing where to place links or content and generally providing what the user would expect

· justifying and necessitating the actual content on screen – mobile browsing is often a quick, short experience so superfluous, additional content would prove hinder some in equating to an efficient mobile browsing experience

This remains a work in progress, and I think I may well refine it further, perhaps specifying touch screen devices only or focus merely on the stuff I can affect i.e. the coding of the stylesheets and design. The only other problem is that with real mobile web being quite a new topic it isn't going to have the vast amount of reading material that other topics can enjoy. There are some though so I shall have to scout them wisely.

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